I was almost sad to see it go as I dropped it off at UPS today for a refund. After about a week of troubleshooting with HP about why it would lock-up after two hours or so, they reported that it must have had defective hardware.FIRST IMPRESSIONS (FINISH, HEAT, QUIETNESS)
When I first took it out of the box and powered it on, I loved it! The aluminum finish was the biggest plus for me. After an hour or so setting it up and installing (and uninstalling) software, the entire unit (save for the plastic heat outlet) was still cool to the touch. And it was incredibly quiet, too. I don't think I ever heard the fans wind up in the week that I had it. The low setting that they were on was hardly audible.
SCREEN
The screen was brilliant, though vertical viewing angles were unimpressive. Colors were great out of the box. I chose not to play with the ATI display settings. The 1600x900 resolution is a good choice for this screen size. I wouldn't go any lower, and while I would still go higher, that is only to satisfy my greed.
KEYBOARD
The keyboard had a generally positive feel to it. I didn't have time to get accustomed to the keyboard layout. I'm used to my HP dv4 which does not have a numberpad. And the fact that I used my dv4 for trouble-shooting purposes for the better part of the week didn't help. One of my favorite features, though, was the integrated action keys like you find on Macs. The function keys up top are, out of the box, primarily used for functions such as play/pause, volume up/down, brightness up/down etc. You don't need to press the fn key to access the functions. If this is undesirable, there is a toggle in the bios setup.
TOUCHPAD
The touchpad is a serious design problem for me, though I knew what I was getting into when I ordered it. I am pretty readily adaptable to keyboards and touchpads, so I figured it wouldn't be a problem. Truth be told, I wouldn't have a problem if I kept it. It was just an annoyance. Let me clarify: When I'm using the touchpad, I like to keep my index finger on the mouse button while my middle finger does the tracking. Since the touchpad is an entire unit, with the buttons integrated beneath the sensitive track pad, any movement of my index finger would send the cursor in a frenzy across the screen. It wouldn't take terribly long to get used to, though. And tapping the top-left corner twice disables or enables the touchpad, so accidentally moving the cursor when typing isn't a worry.
AUDIO
Sound quality was a big factor in choosing this laptop. It had a brand-name moniker (apparently well respected, so I'm told), so I figured it must have been something special.
Let me be clear up front: If you are looking for sound quality, YOU WILL NOT FIND IT HERE. The laptop speakers themselves sound good, with the built-in subwoofer carrying some of the lower frequencies you don't typically find in a notebook. But this does not mean the unit sounds good. There is some filter applied, which I could not find for the life of me, that was heavily COMPRESSING the sound (boosting the quiet sounds while ruthlessly drawing-back the loud sounds). It made listening to music with the on-board speakers literally painful at times (play a song by Atreyu with lots of cymbals and it will sound like you're underneath a helicopter from the dramatic volume cuts with each hit of a cymbal). I searched all over, and even reinstalled Windows and updated drivers, and nothing would fix the problem. On the other hand, sound through the minijack was great. The output was strong, though it seems the low-mids were boosted a little as compared to my dv4 with IDT HD audio.
This whole Beats thing though is a complete gimick. Out of the box, the bass and treble controls in Windows are set to full boost, which sounds like crap. By toggling the "Beats" feature (fn+b), it simply turns the bass all the way up (on), or all the way down (off). Not intuitive at all! Also, the control panel is the exact same as my dv4's IDT control panel, but with the Beats logo stamped in some places. I am much more pleased with the Altec Lansing setup on my HP dv4.
PERFORMANCE
Unfortunately, I didn't have time to test the performance of the laptop. I did have pretty high expectations, though, as I'm coming from (actually, currently typing on) an older AMD laptop with integrated graphics. I used to be pretty interested in computers and could tell you how certain components would perform, but over the years I lost touch with that side of me. Now days, I don't know how the AMD phenom stacks up. My understanding (confirmed by a few searches) is that AMD has gotten increasingly closer to Intel's competing processors, but is still a little behind in most regards. I'm guessing that ATI graphics processor is in the midrange as far as GPUs go. With its stay on my desk, it never felt underpowered, though I admittedly did nothing to truly exercise it. When purchasing, I felt that this laptop had an outstanding price-spec ratio, which helped me pull the trigger.
BATTERY LIFE
Another thing I never got to try. If it can live up to its claim of 7.5 hours, then that is very impressive for a laptop of this size (in my opinion). More time than I would ever need in one sitting. Truthfully, I don't doubt that number can be seen if settings are kept low and activity is kept reasonable.
PROS
stunning aluminum finish, nice screen, runs very cool and quiet, good featureset for the price
CONS
touchpad can be finicky, pathetic Beats audio, disc drive eject button can be challenging to press
I'll miss most the sleek and stylish aluminum finish. I'll forget the somewhat quirky touchpad. I'm glad to be away from the terrible Beats audio.
...
I know I didn't delve into as much as some would like, but due to my unit being defective, I spent most of my time focusing on getting it working rather than putting it through its paces. I hope my review can be of at least some value to most.
*Note: My dv7 being defective has no effect on my rating. All manufacturers have duds, and I'm still in a positive relationship with HP.
Buy HP Pavilion dv7-4170us 17.3-Inch Laptop PC - Up to 7.5 Hours of Battery Life (Argento) Now
I like the computer. If is relatively fast, and it has lots of space on it. The monitor is large and clear. I love the fingerprint reader mostly for the novelty. I've had no real issues with performance of the computer itself, but the driver for the fingerprint reader was out-of-date when it arrived. I initially set the reader up, but within a couple of days it mysteriously stopped working. I had to do a little research to find out what I needed to do. I updated the driver, and now it works fine. The worst thing about this computer for me is that it is not left-hand friendly. There is a spot on the top left of the mousepad that completely turns the mouse off. Being left-handed, I am constantly hitting this area. According to tech support, there is no way to turn this feature off. The tech support person did offer to tell me how to turn the whole mouse off. (Wasn't that the problem to start with???) Had I known this, I am not sure that I would have purchased this computer. It does seem to me that there must certainly a better place to put the switch. I feel that it was poor planning and lack of consideration on the part of hp.When I first received the computer, I had some problems with it crashing, loading CD reading cds. But after installing windows updates, most problems evaporated. I love the portability of this laptop, much lighter than last HP I have, and keyboard is easy to type on. Seems to work flawlessly most of the time and very quick. Only gripe I still have is the cd door closer, hard to open. Heard that from other reviewers also. Much too cheap hardware. Coming from HP should be better.I have tried 3 laptops before this one. This is like a Cadillac compared to the others. I love the keyboard. The mouse-pad is not a problem. The display is bright and crisp. Movies are great!! Love the fingerprint reader. The sound is much better than my old unit, so I don't really have a problem with this one. Had never made this large a purchase online. but everything went like clockwork. HP Pavilion dv7-4170us 17.3-Inch Laptop PC Up to 7.5 Hours of Battery Life (Argento) Just really happy overall with this computer. Thanks Amazon. My old laptop (also an HP Pavilion) was about 7 years old, so maybe that;s why this one is such a pleasure. But there's a lot to be said for the fact that it lasted so long. I don't think you can go wrong with the value either. A laptop with the same features at a warehouse club is almost $200.00 more. And that's after the price increased on this one.The one gripe I have is with Microsoft not HP. It's the starter editions of Word and Excel. I already bought an upgrade for 2007, now if I want Outlook I have to buy another. Can't use my old one. Enough boohoo.
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